Upon a Star
by vanishingtwin
Summary: Four young people lost their world as children. Three of them have made a new life on an asteroid in the depths of space with other refugees, while one set out alone. After almost a decade, it's time to return to what's left of their home. But the scars haven't healed, and what appears to be reality can't always be trusted.
1. Chapter 1: Introlude With Tortoise

"Excuse me? Excuse me sir, it's time to go home now."

The haggard old tortoise jerks awake and spins around in his barstool with cartoon surprise. His small red hat is left spinning in the air after he comes to a stop, and he stretches his neck up to get it back on his head. He squints at the figure in front of him, whom he can only see as a pillar of pink.

"Who? Huh—who?"

"Mr. Tortoise?" The figure becomes clearer.

"Yuh? Yeah, that's me. How can I—uhhh…" He dozes off again, and collapses against the bar. A shotglass that stands in his path is pushed off, and shatters on the floor. A man rushes from the back room, looks at the broken glass, mutters "Dammit Toby, not again…," and goes back through the swinging doors..

"Oh _no_, oh _no_. Mr. Tortoise, look what you did. Someone will have to clean this up now…"

The tortoise opens his bleary eyes, and the figure comes into focus. A severe but gentle-looking girl draped in pink.

"I was in…a race once…young lady."

"I know you were, Mr. Tortoise. You've told me many times. Now come on, it's time for you to go home." She bends to pick him up. His limbs and head retract into his shell as she grasps it. She hears retching echoing from inside. She sighs.

"What's your name, young lady? I've…seen you before."

"All these times I've taken you back to your house in the second district and you still can't remember my name?"

His head emerges again. His eyes are bloodshot. "I…ran a race once."

"You poor thing. My name is—"

"Aerith?" The door opens, and another girl leans into the bar. "Aerith, we're getting ready to leave. What are you doing?"

"Making sure no one is left behind, Yuffie. I'll be right there."

Yuffie nods, and leaves. Aerith hoists Toby Tortoise under her arm, and flicks her hand toward the broken glass. The debris collects into a pile, which floats up and deposits itself in a trash can. The bartender emerges from the back holding a dustpan as Aerith drops a handful of golden orbs into a nearby ashtray.

"Munny's on the counter, Biggs."

She leaves the bar and steps out into the dusk.


	2. Chapter 2: Between the Lampposts

The Traverse Town square is a riot of puppies. Everywhere Aerith looks, the space is overflowing with puppies, milling about and causing havoc like a biblical plague. Their parents, two stately adult Dalmatians, attempt to corral them together without much success.

Leon stands on a crate in the center, holding a shuddering, crying electric blanket in his arms. He's surrounded by other refugees from consumed worlds, most of whom are currently being harassed by one or more puppies.

"Aerith, finally. Thank you for finding Toby, I was worried."

"How does he know all their _names_…?" Yuffie mutters as Aerith walks to her side.

"Blanky, it's going to be alright, I promise. I have good news today. Here, go back to the others."

A scowling vacuum cleaner rolls up to Leon. "I'll take the kid," it says. Leon gently drapes Blanky over the Kirby's handle and it rolls back into the crowd. The blanket covers its eyes with its corners, whimpering. "Master…Master…" A white-tailed doe looks on pityingly, and turns to make brief eye contact with the bright blue hornbill bird sitting on her back. Aerith sets Toby down and he falls asleep again. Three Dalmatian puppies run up to sniff and paw at his shell.

"Alright, everyone," Leon announces, "I want you all to look up."

The faces in the crowd glance at each other bemusedly before turning skyward. Where there was once a void speckled with pinpricks of light, there is now a swirling galaxy of stars.

"Sora has succeeded. Finally, we can all go home. Those stars are your worlds, my friends. It has been a privilege building this town and this community with you, and it's amazing how far we've come. I regret that the barriers between worlds will reform and the new culture we started here with each other will not be able to continue, but such is the nature of the cosmos. Always remember what happened here, cherish the memories we made on this asteroid. We were the ones who refused to give up, who looked into the golden eye of evil and said no. Every one of you, every puppy and toaster and wizard and reluctant dragon, played a pivotal role in this conflict solely on the strength of your hearts. I am standing before some of the most powerful beings I ever expect to meet. And we may never meet again, but we'll never forget each other."

Yuffie rolls her eyes, smiling. She walked in on Leon rehearsing this speech in his room last night.

"In the next few bells, you should all be summoned back to your worlds by the light and be reunited with your loved ones. Any others who are left will be taken home either in gummi ships by me and my fellow pilots or, if you choose, Merlin and the Fairy Godmother have offered their services as well. I have nothing further to say, so you all are free to go about your business as usual until the light comes for you. I wish you all long and happy lives."

The crowd begins to disperse. Leon steps down from the crate to mingle.

"I swear, he relates more with them than he does to any of us," Yuffie says to Aerith. "I'm worried about how well he's going to cope when we get back to Hollow Bastion. He's gotten really close to Beast."

"As long as Squall has a task to focus on, he'll be fine. It's who he is. He's not happy unless he's helping people," Aerith replies. She looks down at Toby. "I don't think he realizes how traumatized some of them are though. Especially the animals. Patch tries to stay strong for them and for his father, but there's only so much they can take, especially with Heartless appearing whenever Sora blew his nose. It was all I could do to get several of the puppies to come out from under the furniture, let alone go outside. I don't think I've seen Cadpig blink since Sora returned her to the mansion. Girls are raised differently on those worlds than you and I were, Yuffie. They rely on men to be their anchor, and it's too much for anyone to bear. Look at poor Lady. For the first month she was here she didn't get out of bed."

"Oh yeah, I remember that. Squall had to feed her with a dropper. I don't think Tramp slept at all when that was going on. That was rough. Your curaga wasn't even working on her."

"Cure magic heals wounds of the body. Wounds of the heart never fully heal."

"I know. Squall—"

"We should stop calling him that, Yuffie."

"Leon, Leon, Leon. I keep forgetting. He's just lost so much already…and now he's going to lose the friends he's made again. Does it ever end?"

Across the square, Leon is speaking with an auburn-haired woman accompanied by a walking broom loaned from Disney Castle. The broom is holding two buckets of burbling water. A carrot floats in one of them.

"I hope everything works out when you return home, Anna. I know it's been difficult for you not being able to solidify him again."

"Don't worry, Leon. He just needs to get home, my sister will fix him. We all just need to go home."

"I wish I could have met your sister. She sounds like an extraordinary woman."

"Yes, I love her dearly. Our parents put her through a lot of pain, though. I'm worried about how she's going to come out of all…this."

"If you need anything, there are ways to reach us. We can arrange something with Merlin."

"Thank you so much. For everything. But we can take care of ourselves now. We always have."

"I understand. Where did Grand Pabbie wander off to?"

"I'm not sure, I'll have to go find him. Thanks again, Leon."

"Absolutely, Anna."

The woman runs up and around the corner towards Geppetto's house, followed by the broom. She returns leading a stocky creature who appears to be made of rocks by the hand.

"Come on, Grand Pabbie, I want us all to be together when—"

Without warning, a blinding light explodes from the chests of Anna and the old troll. The buckets begin to glow, and then water shoots out of them in two geysers that twist together in the air and fly into space. There is a flash, and the three of them are gone.

"Yes!" In a rare undignified moment, Leon jumps and pumps the air with his fist. The lion pendant around his neck clinks against his other jewelry. "Alright, everyone! It's starting. Anna, Grand Pabbie, and Olaf were just taken back to Arendelle. It's only a matter of time for the rest of us."

Cid emerges from his shop. "Leon, message from the chipmunks. Say their sonar is picking something up again."

"Like when they thought they found the remnants of Montressor and it turned out to just be a gummi cluster?"

"Too small for that. They have a shape reading, and they think it's the old man's house. We should hop to it before he gets sucked back to his world."

"Alright, Cloud and I will go. Queue up the _Ifrit_ and we'll depart in half a bell."

"Yep." Cid reenters the shop.

Leon directs his attention to the doe with the bird on her back. "Mother Deer, Zazu, can I speak to you for a moment?"

The bird speaks: "Master Leon, on behalf of the Pride Lands I wish to extend my sincerest thanks for your hospitality. I will fondly remember my time here."

"My pleasure, Zazu. Thank you for entrusting me with Simba's spirit gem. Sora found it very useful. The same with Bambi's, Mother Deer. Both of them have most likely been returned to your respective worlds now."

The doe speaks: "You will always be spoken of with reverence in the forest, Lord Leon."

"Please Mother Deer, there's no need for titles. I'm not the only one responsible for the success of this town. Merlin, Cid, the McDucks, and Geppetto all deserve more credit than I do. I'm a warrior, not a city planner."

Zazu shakes his head and flits up to stand between Mother's ears. "They may have laid the foundation, my boy, but you kept us together. You gave us hope where there was none. My home was already in ruins when the Heartless came. We had lost our king, and the savanna was dying. There was not much left for the darkness to consume. We didn't know anything existed beyond the sky, or that the stars were anything other than the watchful eyes of our ancestors. For us, our world was all. You have shown me—all of us—that the circle of life stretches farther than any of us had imagined. We are forever in your debt for that."

"Thank you, Zazu. I—"

"Traverse Town _sucks_!"

A silence falls over the plaza as the words echo and die out in the alleyways. Leon and Zazu are frozen for a moment, mouth and beak agape in complete bewilderment. Slowly they, and everyone else, turn to where the voice (which sounded like that of a frat boy mocking a rival in a locker room) originated from. Standing rigid in a corner of the plaza is a mouse wearing a tweed coat and deerstalker hat. He holds his arms stiffly at his sides and does not blink.

Leon squints at the mouse, who he knows personally as he knows almost everyone else who has come to live here.

"…Basil? Was that you?"

The silence has become almost tangible. Basil still hasn't blinked or moved. A fox named Tod disappears in a flash of light, but no one notices.

Yuffie glances at Aerith, confused. "What the hell?"

Basil's mouth opens like the mouth of a doll, and a pair of blurry golden eyes peek out.

Leon takes a step backward. "No, they're supposed to be gone…"

Two black antennae snake outward, between the mouse's teeth. Then the Shadow crawls out of the mouth and Basil's body collapses, a deflated fur balloon. The Heartless sinks into the ground and glides across the cobblestones.

Panic breaks out. The citizens of Traverse Town scatter, trampling green army men underfoot. Yuffie pulls out her shuriken and prepares to throw it. Aerith grabs her shoulder.

"Don't," she says. "Clear to the sides of the square, everyone!"

A roar rips out of Leon's throat. "NO! NO MORE!" He pulls the Gunblade from its sheath on his back and the air is a flurry of firaga and smoke. "GET OUT! WE WON, YOUR TIME IS FINISHED! GET AWAY FROM US! _GET OUT!_"

Screams ricochet out of the crowd. "They said we were _safe _now!" "Oh Lord, it never ends!" "Tipo, Chaca, get behind me!" The Reluctant Dragon cowers in a corner, weeping into his tail.

Aerith's quarterstaff appears in her hand and she runs into Leon's line of fire.

"Stop!"

A cage of Roman numerals appears around Leon's body and he freezes in place, Gunblade held high. Only his eyes move.

"Everyone calm down! It's still him!" She uses a reverse gravity spell to pull the Heartless out of the ground, and then reaches toward it.

Yuffie runs forward and stands by Leon, who is coming out of the spell. "Aerith, don't _touch_ it! What are you _doing_?"

The Shadow's face ripples and bends as Aerith's hand approaches. It slashes at her wrist but its arm goes limp as she touches its forehead. Its eyes grow larger and brighter and subsume its body. It folds backward on itself until it has become a ball of light, which dims into a crystalline heart. Simultaneously Aerith raises her hand toward Basil's abandoned skin, which has begun to slither spastically across the edge of the square, strands of barbwire nothingness intertwining around it. She casts a magnet spell and draws it toward her. She holds the skin and the heart close to her chest, and the light rages between her fingers before fading. She looks up at Leon, who is coming out of the spell, and a shocked Yuffie. She opens her hands to reveal the Great Mouse Detective, whole again and trembling.

"So dark…so dark…" he whispers.

Leon regained his faculties a few seconds before, but he hasn't moved for being awestruck.

"Aerith…how did you…"

Aerith's nose starts bleeding.

"I don't know. But I don't think I'll be able to do it again."

Basil glances up and sees the trickles coming from her nostrils.

"Good lord, my dear. Here, take this." He hands up his pocket handkerchief, which is barely the size of Aerith's fingertip.

"Thank you, Basil." She dabs pathetically at the blood while Yuffie cuts off a segment of her scarf and goes to her.

"Aerith, that was amazing," she says, putting an arm around her friend's head and staunching the flow from her nose. When the bleeding is under control, she brings Aerith close and lets her rest on her shoulder. Aerith looks up at Leon, who is still speechless.

"Brute force does not solve everything, Squall."

"I _know_," Leon barks. "I _know_, Aerith. I…I'm _sorry_. It's just…nothing makes sense. _Ever_."

Basil gathers his bearings and stands shakily on Aerith's palm, smoothing his creased coat.

"I don't recall anything past this morning, I'm afraid, Mr. Leon. But I'm sure you were only acting in our best interests."

"You didn't hear yourself, Basil. I can take care of one Heartless just fine, but what you said…it was so absurd, like the universe was spitting at me. At _us_. At everything we've strived to preserve. For a moment it felt like it all meant nothing. No, not nothing. Less than that."

"Squall, it's not like that. You're projecting."

"Don't _call _me that, Yuffie! Do _not_. You don't know what it's been like. I've had to shoulder the weight of all these people's pain and trauma on my—"

"_Bull_shit! Bull_shit_! You took that on your_self_."

"Yuffie, please…" Aerith kneels and sets Basil on the ground.

"We've seen you hurting and we've wanted to help but you wouldn't let us _in_, Squall. You made us watch while you punished yourself for _nine fucking years_!"

"Don't talk like that in front of them!" He's referring to the assembled crowd. The Reluctant Dragon's heart glows, and he's gone. Blanky is crying again, and an appalled Lampy is standing between him and the argument. Toby Tortoise is awake, but wandering aimlessly on his feet. He falls on his back and can't get up. "They were _pure_ before the darkness came, before the hurt began. Before _Ansem_."

Aerith speaks up, and throws the cloth aside. Dried blood is caked on her lips. "No they _weren't_. You can entertain that fantasy, that everything was perfect before the Keyholes opened and the barriers came down, but you're wrong and you know it. The entire _universe_ has been in agony for generations, and _I have always been able to feel it_. Ever since I was born, Squall, I've _felt_ it. _Physically_. I thought it was normal. I have learned to own my pain, use it to help others. You imploded inward because you couldn't save everyone, and I understand that. I really do. We lost all the people you lost, Squall. We all miss Rinoa. We all have holes in our hearts where she was, not just you. The same with Marlene, and Vincent, all of them. The thought that I may never see them again makes me feel…hollow."

"Aerith. Please…do me a favor."

"Squall, you know we love you."

"Never, _ever_, say that name again. Not in my presence or out of it. I don't care how long it's been…just don't. It's not mine anymore."

"…If that's what you wish, my friend, I will respect that. But you need to let yourself heal. You can't grieve forever."

"Yes, I can," Leon says, his eyes darkening.

The door of Cid's shop creaks open and Cloud emerges. He stands on the stairs and scans the plaza silently. Lady and Tramp's hearts glow, and they're gone. Mother Deer's heart glows, and she's gone, back to the meadow. Zazu takes to the air and rests on the mailbox, chased by a coterie puppies who scratch at the mailbox's tongue, yipping. Cloud locks eyes with the bird and they have a brief staring match. Cloud redirects his gaze to Leon.

"Looks like I missed something important." He shrugs. "Always happens. You ready to go house hunting, Leon?"

Leon blinks rapidly, refusing to allow tears to show. "Yes. Let's go."

Cloud wends his way past Leon and across the plaza toward the world gate. Leon moves to follow him. He stops by Aerith and helps her up with his hand. She puts a hand in his hair and hugs him tightly. Yuffie grips his shoulder in solidarity.

Basil smiles at them and looks at his hands which are his again. He begins to glow, and he's gone.

Leon breaks from the hug and walks away, out of the world gate. The most intense flash of light yet comes and goes as the _Ifrit_ rockets into the void and Traverse Town's population is reduced by one hundred and one. The square is quiet.


	3. Chapter 3: Gummi Song

Cid has taught Cloud well. The clawed glove on his left hand dances across the gummi ship's controls without any apparent effort. Leon flexes his hands to get them to feel. The altercation in the town seems to have sucked all the blood up into his head—fuel for the riot in his brain.

"So…do you want to talk about it?"

It takes a moment for Leon to realize he is being addressed.

"Oh. Um, no. I don't know. I'm fine."

"Liar."

"You called it. Pop your ears."

They hit the warp hole and feel the familiar nausea as they're sucked away from one route to another. Behind them, Deep Jungle shrinks into a mossy pebble.

Candy meteors and hula hoops fly past, accompanied by fleets of unmanned gummi ships with Heartless emblems splattered on their sides like graffiti. Cloud locks onto them and lasers spray out of the _Ifrit_'s twin cannons.

"Plagiarizing bastards, how dare you," Cloud hisses at them through clenched teeth. He turns to Leon. "I ask again, do you want to talk about it?"

"I'm just…frustrated. We've all been robbed."

"Of?"

"Shit, Cloud, do you have to ask? Yuffie is _sixteen_. The same age I was when I killed my first Heartless…when I saw those eyes for the first time. We're all still kids, Cloud, and these are supposed to be our peak years. We've spent them staring into those eyes and fighting…I never thought I'd say it, but I'm so tired of fighting."

"Damn. Squall Leonhart, the gunslinging firebrand, wants to settle down?"

"That's not it, and please don't call me that. It's just…almost a decade of my life has been swallowed whole by darkness. When the Heartless showed up, I'd just passed my SeeD tests. I thought I was invincible. I didn't know what those…" He gestures with his head to a lone passing ship emblazoned with the emblem. "…_things_ represented."

"They don't represent anything, Leon. Darkness isn't anything other than the force we all have to overcome. Don't read meaning into it that isn't there. It'll use that to get inside you. You give it power. That's what happened to Ansem, that's what happened to Quistis…"

"Oh gods…"

"…and that's what happened to me. I'm not going to watch anyone else be used that way, not if I can prevent it. I was a kid when the world fell, too. I forgot its name just like you did, and it fucked me up way more than it did you, trust me. You still have both your wings, Leon. I saw you at the inauguration ball. I saw you dance with her. Whatever you need to do to hold onto that moment, to hold onto your light, do it. You're a leader whether you like it or not. If you break, everyone breaks."

"I'm trying. When we get home, when we start rebuilding, I think it'll get easier…I hate Ansem…"

"He didn't know what he was dealing with, he was old. It happens."

"He ruined everything. _Everything_. You saw our world. They left nothing for us, not even a name to remember it by. Everything that's still there is _his_. That awful castle, those laboratories, everything. It's a monument to our failure, to how blind we were to what he was doing in there."

"I don't know, I suspect someone else did most of the damage. Probably one of the assistants. Even and Braig always creeped me out."

"Did you _read_ the reports, Cloud? It's all in there, it was all him."

"I don't buy it. Something doesn't feel right. I'm just as tired of all this directionlessness as you are. All these secrets. This past year has been the lowest of my life, to the point where I agreed to be a hired thug for the blue clown of the Underworld. I was that desperate. I was so lost in darkness that I didn't care what happened to me, or if I saw Tifa again, or anything. I just wanted it to end. I wanted Sephiroth to kill me."

The cockpit falls silent and Leon realizes that this whole time, Cloud's hands have never been still. They're dancing across the controls like he's conducting an orchestra, and the gummi ship is fluidly dodging blasts from the mindless Heartless ships. In that moment, it dawns on Leon just how brutal Cloud's struggle has been. While he, Yuffie, and Aerith waited for the Keyblade to appear and futilely attempted to rehabilitate the universe's orphans, this man was lost in space, fighting a nine-year Platinum Match against an unstoppable demon. Leon's nine years had been miserable, yes, but he never felt in mortal danger in Traverse Town. Other than the nightmares that woke him in a cold sweat each night, he was mostly okay. Cloud's nightmare was very alive and actively trying to destroy him.

"Cloud…I never realized…"

"I know. I've never told anyone. Not even Cid."

"Are things…better for you at all, now? I feel bad for complaining."

"It'll be fine. We'll all be fine. I think it may be too late for me, but that's not much of a loss. There's nothing to do now but set things right. Help people find their light again."

He looks ahead.

"And there's some now. Activate Osmose-Gs."

From behind an asteroid, a small house floats into view, suspended by hundreds of balloons. A garden hose hangs from the porch, swinging elegiacally in space. They engage the appropriate gummis to draw it close, and a flock of Bit Snipers flutter out from under the eaves, quickly destroyed by well-timed laser shots. The two friends delicately maneuver it out of danger and back toward the warp hole.

They don't talk for a while. As they emerge from the orange-vanilla vortex and are careening past the Coliseum, Leon makes a weak attempt at small talk.

"We should schedule a training session there sometime with Herc. He could learn a lot from you. We all could."

"You can think that, I guess."

"You didn't really mean what you said back there, did you? It's not too late for you. For anybody."

"…I'm not sure. Now that you mention it, things have gotten better. A lot better. I actually…haven't been this hopeful in a long time. …And know who got me back on track?" He chuckles to himself, amazed at life's absurdity. "The kid. That…awkward, dorky, _weird_ little kid. Without him…I might not be here."

"Sora had that effect on all of us, I think. It was so strange to see someone so…_open_. Obviously he's young, and kind of a doofus—"

"He can be a cocky little shit sometimes."

"That too, but he was so committed. He hadn't been touched by this conflict at all before the Keyblade chose him…and he jumped right in. I've never seen someone become so powerful in so little time, not even Quistis. It was weird to be around someone with that much energy. We were all so tired by that point. And I think he was so effective because he stayed focused. He had a clarity that the rest of us had lost. All he wanted was to find his friends. That was it."

They pull up to the world gate, balloons trailing behind them like ovular victory flags. Leon looks out the window and sees Wonderland framed by a distant nebula.

Cloud initiates landing sequences, and sighs.

"Yeah, that was it."

The gate opens.

* * *

In that day the wolf and the lamb will live together;  
the leopard will lie down with the baby goat.  
The calf and the yearling will be safe with the lion,  
and a little child will lead them all.

—Isaiah 11:6 (New Living Translation)

* * *

The wolf shall live with the lamb,  
the leopard shall lie down with the kid,  
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,  
and a little child shall lead them.

—Isaiah 11:6 (New Revised Standard Version)


End file.
